★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

I think in some ways R&B has developed a certain sensibility whereby it hints at all of these sensations along the lines of "watching the end of a party through smoke" etc. etc. without actually acknowledging it head on, but the singer knows that the listener knows that the singer knows that that territory is right there, a gaping abyss surrounding the loving and debauchery and egoism.

Kinda keen to build on my own thought here: the value of the hidden gesture in particular genres.

Like, I don't expect big Weeknd stans who are not also massively into modern R&B to really like the remix of Cristina Milian's "Dip It Low", but for me it has the debauchery into shattered emptiness vibe that people seem to see in this stuff.

I think you're on to something there - foregrounding the 'shattered emptiness vibe' is definitely what sets this apart from other R&B out there, and the indie production is used to get at that, not as an end in itself

like I think the lex's complaints would make a lot more sense if this was trey songz loverman type lyrics set over beach house, but it's not

whoa hold on its still a guy singing about rnb

also lol this band have been mentioned four times on pitchfork and once was nabisco writing about this thread

I think some blogs mentioned the weeknd too, don't forget

i feel like im drowning

the shit leaked like a day ago b/w trust me these dudes are gonna be on late nite tv w/in a couple months

yeah when something's trajectory is so clearly preordained i don't think it's out of line to think a couple steps ahead

i mean if Drake actually does hire these guys to write a couple of joints on his next album and they become another shade in his spectrum of 40/Boi 1da sadsack R&B that'll be a slightly different kind of success than we're assuming they're headed for but probably won't make a huge difference ultimately

whatevs, it's more fun to talk about than the new gucci mane mixtape

obv

tbh i was really impressed how quickly tom & nabisco managed to publish pieces responding to not just the mixtape but the discussion around it. epic

tom?

this is nice.

and yeah, very jeremih

think i need to cruise ilm for music recommends more often now that I'm less biz active

not to like further incense gr80 that i'm not attentively listening to the entire album and posting strictly about the music, but as much as i totally get Lamp's point about emotional response, i'm really interested in the thought process that gets people clicking around and deciding to hear The Weeknd in the first place. like obviously this is being defined universally as R&B, whether a certain kind or a hybrid with something else, but what are the keywords or aspects of the buzz around this that it's quickly impacting a type of music fan that by and large isn't checking for R&B? i mean you might ALSO primarily hear about some ilx-beloved R&B act like Teedra Moses or Electrik Red on the internet rather than the radio, but even within this little community there's a palpable difference of how those records are discussed and buzzed about vs. this.

the're also a reason why i think this being R&B is very particular to the argument and why analogies to situations in other genres aren't especially useful. i really believe that probably a greater percentage of the best R&B is mainstream (either on a major label or being made by very visible, famous artists) than is true for probably any other major genre right now. there are whole worlds of underground/niche/internet/indie rock or rap or dance music that offer completely different things to music fans that the mainstream equivalents don't even begin to provide -- i'm not sure if that's so much the case with R&B, where most off-the-radar artists are either wannabe mainstream amateurs and also-rans or working in an older style that's no longer on the charts. usually when critics do rally around a less commercial R&B artist, it's the latter, someone like Sharon Jones that makes total sense as an 'alternative' to radio R&B. with something like The Weeknd that's not only stylistically contemporary but has earned a lot of comparisons to a artists/sounds that are all over the radio (Drake/40, Terius/Tricky), i gotta say it feels like the 'mysterious collective' stuff and the weird cover art are making way more of the difference than just the subtleties of mood and production styles.

i feel like whiney could do a 'if someone had a gun to your head could you sing' poll to most of this record & ppl would struggle to remember the hooks unless theyd lived with it for a long time. which is my problem w/ the songwriting in general. without playing the record now, can anyone sing that first track from memory? the bulk of this stuff just doesnt stick imo

this maybe IS one of those times where it's fair to point out the record's been out for x days or whatever

usually on records in this pop milieu there are a good number of tracks that hit right away though, or when i spin thru the record i can see how they'll grow w/ time.

ime

yeah i know i'm just sayin

listening to "Wicked Games" and yeah this guy really does lean on the F-words in the same kind of "YEAH I SAID IT my mom didn't hear that did she?" way as Tyler Comma The Creator

i do think 'the morning' has a good hook to it but the wayne quote in the chorus feels awkward to me in a way that i remember talking about w/r/t that glitchy uk dance genre that almost-was with switch back in the mid-00s where they would sample diddy saying "i love to make you dance," where its going for a hip-hop vibe but does it in a way that feels kind of ... not like what an american artist would do? stilted.

but what are the keywords or aspects of the buzz around this that it's quickly impacting a type of music fan that by and large isn't checking for R&B?

w/o tryna sidebrag or be lame just knowing where the dudes behind this are coming from, the type of social circle(s) they move in/culture they participate in i think there's a self-reinforcing aspect to it. like if youre a young educated person in their early 20s living in a big city & youve made some music where else but the dreaded blogs are you gonna go to promote your stuff? & the tumblrs that youre gonna send your stuff to are the ones you like, or your friends write, or ppl you know think are cool.

like i realize this is tautological but theres this whole constellation of ~cultural participation~ that creates its own logic - it almost feels like qn why you might be buzzing over some local baltimore artist when theyres just as good music being made in san diego - thats not where you live yknow

& also i mean w/o going on a reality tv show or doing mall tours idk how a person wld even start tryna break into the mnstrm r&b game atp so its like - what else are you gonna do?

ugh why is 50 on "the 5 senses"? that worked perfectly at the end of "waiter"

xp ^^ this kinda plays into points upthread made about how indie needs criticism or these grassroots promotions to be relevant, whereas the R&B model has done just fine w/o it

was waiting for you to show up xp

oh yeah, there are a lot of things happening in terms of how the artist is putting their music out and how people are hearing it that are totally logical, honest, easily explained, etc. i'm just trying to say there are grey areas of that process that maybe ARE a little more insidious or imbued with deeper meaning, without sounding like a conspiracy theorist or something. xpost

idk how i got here actually i have never heard this band, what is their big song?

and of course since the majority of R&B is defined by how much radio play/mtv play it gets, or even by how much radio play it aims to get, it's easy to see why something that defines itself against that channel of promotion would stand out

...to people who dont like music that is promoted that way?

I didn't make any claims about the audience?

you can be into radio R&B and still take note of this?

well you made an assumption about it standing out to *someone* so im trying to get an idea of who you meant

people who blog, obv

another question to consider is if this mixtape hadn't gone through cool-tumblrs-of-note and instead went through some elektrik red type channel of promotion, would it still be notable

im just trying to say there are grey areas of that process that maybe ARE a little more insidious or imbued with deeper meaning

yeah, sure i was just tryna look @ it from the artists pov, more than anything. like @ some pt we are all making conscious choices abt what we pay attn to but idk maybe you overestimate how easy it is to hear ~mainstream rnb~ given certain choices. like i dont have a car or a job where i can listen to the radio or a radio at home or cable. like it was easier for me to hear a new raw moans remix than it was to hear the dawn richards mixtape. so sure im making a choice abt which tumblrs/youtubes/gchat msgs im paying attn to but all the good r&b i hear is bcuz of ilm or other web stuff too yknow??

i mean just to be unambiguous about any bias or agenda people may reasonably think i have: tbh i DO feel like there ideally SHOULD be more discussion about mainstream R&B among ANY critics/publications that consider themselves generalist or open-minded or as interested in urban music as rock or dance or w/e. and when someone like The-Dream gets a nice critical momentum going, i feel like that IS a step forward, and the next step forward might be another artist of similar mainstream profile getting more critical ink (and i won't throw out an example because then the discussion becomes about whether that example is good enough or comparable or w/e, but you know, someone who's had at least one or two hits). so when what feels like a rising level of critical interest in R&B starts getting directed at something like The Weeknd (or The xx or How To Dress Well or Yacht, you name it), i do admit that yeah, it feels a little like a step back, in terms of the critical community staying within an aesthetic comfort zone, letting R&B-influenced music meet them halfway instead of venturing out into finding more things to champion among the sea of good and bad mainstream R&B.

this is further from r&b then I was expecting from the hype/discussion. heavy on atmosphere, light on hooks. I would love more r&b meets indie, but in a way that doesn't take some of the obvious sign posts and point them downward. its soulful crooning but its sad. its techno but its sad. And I like sad music but most of this goes that way too obviously. I get the end of the party, emotions blown out vibe, but I'm not all that convinced the party was ever fun or that there was some other emotion taking place aside from desperate pleading. In short, needs more contrast. I'd like a few more tracks free of the dubstep/triphop beats. like 'loft music' the best.

I get the end of the party, emotions blown out vibe, but I'm not all that convinced the party was ever fun or that there was some other emotion taking place aside from desperate pleading.

some would say this adds to the appeal

just for the record i should say i wasn't writing about this thread -- i was listening to the record and following twitter conversation, then came here while writing to see if people were saying the same stuff! i think the issues surrounding this are just super-fascinating to me because i listen to a good amount of r&b lately, and when i listen to weeknd it feels especially clear that, like ... "this r&b is activating pleasure centers i associate with indie records" -- but it feels difficult to pinpoint specifically what sounds/choices/values are involved in doing that.

And I think big R&B listeners end up preferring that strategic misdirection and coded mannerism, leaving the Weeknd's decision to face it head on seeming somehow gauche, like coming out and saying what everyone else was cleverly implying.

tim f otm

so when what feels like a rising level of critical interest in R&B starts getting directed at something like The Weeknd (or The xx or How To Dress Well or Yacht, you name it), i do admit that yeah, it feels a little like a step back, in terms of the critical community staying within an aesthetic comfort zone, letting R&B-influenced music meet them halfway instead of venturing out into finding more things to champion among the sea of good and bad mainstream R&B.

some dude otm

And I like sad music but most of this goes that way too obviously. I get the end of the party, emotions blown out vibe, but I'm not all that convinced the party was ever fun or that there was some other emotion taking place aside from desperate pleading

bnw otm

(i'm too hungover to have thoughts of my own atm)

fyi dudes, here's a screwed version of this

http://www.thug.com/the-weeknd-house-of-balloons-chopped-screwed/

man Trick Daddy's website fell off

hahah literal lol

lol @ needing the screwed version to start paying attention to the lyrics. but yeah, lyric-wise this seems different than typical R&B - like he says 'she'll probably OD before I get a chance to show her to my mom' or something like that (paraphrasing) - acknowledgement of the nihilism of cobrasnake style coked out runway parties. like this is maybe the kind of self-destructive gloss that kanye was going for in MBDTF except it does feel kind of genuine here.

anyway maybe the weeknd will be R&B's version of OFWGKTA. just puttin it out there

anyway once I put away my R&B ears, this is nice. love the languid opulent crust to the screwed version

also the milieu is p different - the songs are set at house parties @ the homes and flats of rich ppl (or maybe just his friends), not nightclubs

you'd prob find terry richardson at one of these parties idk